Burlington Central’s 10 free throws in final quarter help outlast Batavia in final Night of Hoops match

BATAVIA – LJ Kerr wanted to get to the rim as much as possible.

With Burlington Central stuck in a tight 41-41 contest with two minutes remaining against Batavia in the final game of the Jim & Sylvia Robert Night of Hoops on Saturday, the senior knew what he needed to.

And with the Bulldogs' top paint defender, senior Jax Abalos, with four fouls already, Kerr went in to do the same thing that he had done against the Cornell commit three times already in the game.

Drive to the paint, get the foul call and most importantly, get the basket.

“I knew that if I got him up in the air that he was going to come down swinging,” Kerr said. “I had him draw that foul every time. I knew nobody else was going to shot block, so I figured to go strong instead of fading away.”

Kerr’s fourth and-one of the game ended up being the momentum shifter the Rockets needed, as they held onto the lead for the final two minutes to secure a 53-47 victory over the host Bulldogs.

“We trust him when the ball is in his hands,” Central coach Brett Porto said. “He makes a lot of good decisions for us and he’s really strong around the rim. He made some great back cuts and his teammates did a great job finding him.”

With the score locked at 33-33 heading into the final frame, Porto told his team to stay aggressive on offense, especially with players like Abalos and junior Xavier Justice facing foul trouble early on.

“We wanted to attack some of the mismatches that we had,” Porto said. “We knew those guys with foul trouble wouldn’t really try to contest at the rim, so we knew we had to go at them and try to make them pay.”

That mindset ended up allowing Central (17-6) to find a lot of success from the free-throw line. After only having two chances at the free-throw line in the first half, Central took 16 attempts from the charity stripe in the second half, including 12 in the fourth quarter.

One player who benefitted from the trips to the line was senior Caden West, who had five of his seven points come from the line, including the final three points in the game that fully cemented the road victory.

“The thing with free throws in games like this is you just have to imagine a quiet place,” West said. “We’ve been shooting free throws our whole life. And in practice, I just visualize sitting at the line and having to focus and be just me and the rim. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

Despite losing Abalos (14 points) with two minutes left in the game, Batavia (7-12) fought to stay in for the entire fourth quarter, especially thanks to Justice, who scored nine of his 11 points on the night in the final frame.

“I thought we were just always fighting to catch up in the fourth,” Bulldogs coach Jim Nazos said. “Maybe we grab a lead, but then they’d grab the lead five seconds later. And losing Jax was a huge blow on offense and defense, but we’ve just got to learn to go through it.”

Joe Reid led the scoring for the Bulldogs with 16 points. The junior helped them take a 20-19 lead into halftime after scoring 11 points in the first half alone. He also secured a pair of steals on the night.

“He’s been building up to a game like this,” Nazos said. “And the guys are getting better, and I think we’ll continue to get better as a team.”